Home is where the heart is
Words by Margie Riddiford
Photography by John Hamer
In carefully renovating her new Wellington home, stylist and photographer Chloe Hill created a series of unique spaces in which character, colour and conscience can coexist.
When Chloe Hill first saw the house that is now her home, she was on a photoshoot in the middle of nowhere, using a patchy signal to do her weekly scan for estate sales. Suddenly, there it was: a 1950s time capsule of patterned wallpaper, worn carpet and pastel ceilings that, for many, would have been a teardown. In Chloe’s eyes, it was the preservation project she’d been looking for, a vessel into which she could pour her time and love and furnish with her own eclectic sensibility. “I just felt such a pull to save it,” she tells me. “I always wanted somewhere with a lot of original charm that I could renovate in a considered, respectful way.”
To walk through Chloe’s home is to feel the energy of what has come before. Whispers of its history linger between the swathes of bold colour that Chloe added (from a bright pink kitchen to a lavender hallway to a blue bathroom) and the pieces she has curated on every surface. This collision of past and present is intentional. “I could feel the care in every detail,” she says of the previous owners, who had bought the house when they married and were its only residents. “The wallpaper in each room was different, every ceiling a different pastel… it was all chosen with such love.” She smiles. “Even now, I think of Beverly [the previous owner] when I’m painting, picking tiles… I stop and think, maybe this is what she would’ve done if she could have. I feel her presence all the time.”
That said, it is clear that Chloe has her own, unique design language. And instead of being trend-driven, the aesthetic of her house feels original and distinctive, anchored by a kind of purposeful, joyful chaos. “I’m not interested in perfect cohesion,” she says. “Even if it’s a bit chaotic, I want it to feel warm and welcoming.” She continues, “I like walking into a room and being in a world of my own. We’ve become so obsessed with open-plan, but there’s something grounding about spaces that have edges and that can exist independently.”
After years in Sydney and time spent living and working across Europe, Chloe’s return to Aotearoa — and to the Wellington suburbs in which she grew up — took her by surprise. But when she found out she was pregnant at the start of the pandemic, she knew it was time to settle. “I never thought I’d move back here,” she admits. “But having a child makes you nostalgic. You want to give them an upbringing that echoes your own.” What she found was not only a place to land, but a house with its own heartbeat, and one that she has built on with a deep respect for its origins.
Respect is a word Chloe returns to often, not just in how she’s preserved the spirit of the house, but in how she’s filled it. Her approach to design mirrors her views on fashion: thoughtful, sustainable, expressive. “Just like I do with clothes, when I buy something for my home I think about who made it, its impact, what kind of life it might have after me,” she explains. “Everything in this house has had a set of hands on it. That matters.”
“I like walking into a room and being in a world of my own. We’ve become so obsessed with open-plan, but there’s something grounding about spaces that have edges and that can exist independently.”
Sustainability shapes her entire process: repurposing cabinetry, stripping wallpaper by hand, polishing old floorboards. “I try to thrift or source secondhand wherever I can,” she says. “If you’re patient, you can find nearly everything that way.” YouTube tutorials have guided her through most of the work. “I’ve really upskilled,” she says, laughing. “This whole process has shown me what I’m capable of.”
The walls are hung with artworks by friends, mostly photographers whose outlooks mirror her own. Among her favourites are a series of small dog portraits found in op-shops. “I love thinking how much an owner must have loved their dog to commission a portrait,” she laughs. She also treasures photographs by Anna Pogossova — sculptural lipsticks rendered into surreal busts. “We’re drawn to the same things — colour, nostalgia, joy — so of course her work resonates with me.”
As a stylist, Chloe spent years attending fashion weeks in Milan, Paris, London and New York, always making time to scour flea markets between shows. “I’d carry little vases and trinkets back in my suitcase and stash them in a storage unit,” she says. “I was collecting for the home I didn’t have yet.” Now, those objects bring emotional texture to every room. “They were my little companions through all those years of movement. And now it feels like they’re home.”
“They were my little companions through all those years of movement. And now it feels like they’re home.”
Outside, the garden has become Chloe’s sanctuary, where she has spent many days digging up the old lawn and replanting. It’s the place, she tells me, she feels happiest.” In the colder months, she moves inward, finding refuge in the living room or her bedroom, which is bathed in natural light. “It also has my favourite wallpaper,” she says. “I sit there and work, or read, or hang out with my daughter. It’s where I felt drawn to from the start.”
Despite the love she’s poured into every detail here, Chloe tells me that, for her, home has never been about permanence; it’s about presence. “For so many years, I didn’t have a permanent space. But home can be wherever you are, with the right people, at the right moment.” Within its faded wallpaper, secondhand treasures and sunlit corners, Chloe has built something enduring: a space where memory and meaning are held with care, with a deep appreciation for what came before and a knowing that there will be an after.
